By now, I’m sure everyone has heard about the major disaster exercise Cascadia Rising 2016, which is a combined Federal, State, Tribal, County and Local government exercise based on a simulated magnitude 9 earthquake along the entire Cascadia Subduction Zone fault line off the Pacific Coast of the Western U.S. In addition, in conjunction with Cascadia, there are a number of other exercises involving U.S. Military operations in conjunction with State and Local operations, and an international aspect with Canada’s participation with their Staunch Maple exercise.

This is a 4 day exercise covering June 7, 8, 9 and 10. The City of Seattle will officially participate on the 2nd and 3rd days, June 8th and 9th, and some City Departments will also conduct activities on June 7th and 10th.

Seattle ACS will be conducting a Communications Exercise (Commex) on June 7th to provide communications support to selected City Departments, will be participating fully in the Seattle Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on June 8th and 9th, and will be conducting a Commex on June 11th in support of a number of Seattle Emergency Communications Hubs.

On June 7th, 8th & 9th, we anticipate operating from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. On June 11th we plan to run from 9:00 am to Noon. Participants need to be in place, set up and ready to begin operations each day, by the indicated start time.

Additional details, along with operating frequencies on an ICS-205 for each date, will be sent to participants in late May.

Preparations for this exercise have been ongoing for many months, and ACS has been fortunate to be a full participant in the Exercise Design Phase for Seattle. We have focused some of our training over the past few months specifically to support Cascadia and the corresponding ACS Commex’s. April 30th, we conducted an exercise sending email correspondence between multiple locations around Seattle to and from a command post located at North Seattle College, specifically in preparation for our upcoming support to the City Department’s on June 7th.

While we have our staffing firmed up for June 8th and 9th, there are still plenty of opportunities for ACS members to participate on June 7th and 11th. If you are interested in participating in the Commex supporting inter-departmental communications on June 7th, please contact Carl Leon, and if you are interested in participating in the Commex on June 11th in support of Hubs, please contact Jessica Coleman.

Please join us for our monthly ACS meeting and training, to be held Saturday May 14th at South Seattle College, Olympic Hall, Room 101. Doors open at 8:30 for coffee and seating. Meeting starts at 9:00, with training following.

This month our training will be focused on preparations for ACS Communications exercises on June 7th (inter-departmental City communications) and June 11th (ACS/Hub exercise), and our participation in Cascadia Rising with the Seattle Emergency Operations Center on June 8th and 9th.